Tel Aviv

21st December, 2016

Iphone snaps from Tel Aviv. I actually had my big camera with me, but didn’t feel like carrying it around, so I only have my iphone photos to share. Totally different style than my normal photos, and I not really sure I like them for web. Oh well – I’ll survive
About the Trip
An old friend and I decided to spontaneously go to Tel Aviv. We stayed at the CUCU Hotel which is on one of the central streets right next to a big shopping center and surround by loads of coffees and restaurants. We had free bikes, so the first thing we did was discover the city. The beach is only 10 min away. The sand is super soft sand water wonderfully warm. We loved it. We followed the beach all the way to old Jaffa. Here we discovered a fun flea market, mixed with hip designer stores. We had a little break in a charming restaurant called Cafe Puaa.

That night we went out and met some really nice locals. After sleeping out that morning we drove our rental car to jerusalem were we stayed in a Hotel called YMCA. It’s inside a historic building and just a walk away from the old city of Jerusalem.
I absolutely adored the city behind the walls. It’s split up between different religious groups: Jewish, christian, Muslim, and few others. I actually find that quite interesting, they live so close together that as a tourist it’s very hard to see in which section your currently walking. It’s a very holy place for all of the religious groups and sometimes they even share the same stories. Anyone that’s familiar to any religious stories will absolutely love this place. And even if not the old stone walls with it’s angled lanes and tiny little stores selling hand made crafts is wonderful place get lost.

If your in Jerusalem the dead sea is a must! We drove around an hour till we got there and since en Gedi is also around the corner we combined the both. I like en Gedi but it’s full of tourist and that’s why it was way less magical. It was pretty hard to find a spot where we could get into the dead sea. The bank is often so dried out that it has huge cracks and is really dangerous to go to. We drove all the way down to Bokek and went to a beach right behind one of the big hotels. The beaches don’t look too nice, but at least it has a shower, which is very, very good to have, after swimming in so much salt.

surprisingly the water is very warm but other than that it doesn’t feel very different to go in. By the way the water was braun not blue like in our photos ( those were taken 300-400 meters further from that beach) Only once you try to swim you’ll notice this water is different. My feet flipped up and I was swimming on my tummy hardly able to get my feet under water and make a stroke. That was really kind of funny. It also makes swimming in that water much harder.

Walking home that night we came across a park that had a water show going on. Kids were running trough it and we watched how the water spit out in the rhythm of the song. We got so into it, that we ended up running and dancing in the water fountain ourselfs. Forever kids in Neverland. Tel Aviv and Jerusalem are so amazing. Totally want to go back!